The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1887-03-19
An pediment to the Higher Ed.
ucatiOn of Women.
". Y. Tribnne.

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Substantial progress has been made
during the last few years in the cause of
female education. The favor with in
telligent public opinion has regarded an
extension to women of all the educa-
tional advantages enjoyed by the other
sex has spread so widely that it can al
most be called unanimous. Those can
tankerous old fogies who affected to be-
lieve that 'women's mission,' as they
called it, was to mind babies and run
the kitchen have long since disappeared.
Only occasionally do we find specimen
of that silly class of objectors who think
that women are designed only to look
pretty and chatter amiably and who
don't think they require any Homer or
Euclid in order develop such accom-
plishments. The secular business of life
is rational enjoyment of ones powers
and faculties. Education is merely an
essential means to this end, and who is
there to deny that women have as much
right to enjoy life and all its nobler
pleasures as men?
And yet the practical establishment
of this reform has not been general. A
careful statistician reports that there are
in America 1901 institutions devoted
to higher education. Attending these
are 163,57o young men and but 3o,5S7
women. These figures are very unsatis-
factory to the advocates of the reform.
To be sure, large measure of encour-
agement is afforded by the gradual re-
moval of obstacles in the way of sending
young women to college. In every
civilized country notable strides have
been made in the extension to them of
first-class advantages. Colleges devoted
purely to female education are rapidly
increasing and are financially well sup
ported. The German universities are
generally open to them. In France the
reform has received such an impetus
that even agricultural and mechanical
schools for girls have been recently
started. A magnificent female univer-
sity at Moscow has been arranged for
and will soon be built, while here in
America young women are accorded ex-
CeptlOndl IdClllIlGS.
There must be some other reason for
the disproportion in the number of male
and female students than can be charged
to lack of opportunity for girls, and we
] think it is to be found in a certain do
mestic prejudice that exists against
sending them away from home. AS
rule parents, and mothers especially,
are reluctant enough about sending their
boys away. That contingency, however,
they have prepared themselves for They
have accepted it as inevitable, but the
idea of parting with daughter just
when she is blossoming into womanhood
is extremely unwelcome. Reason may
say that it is for the best. The cold
theory of ushering her into social life
accomplished and well-informed may
seem wise and desirable, but experience
shows that objections on her part are
listened to with an acquiescent spirit.
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1t will be necessary for those who de-
sire to see the higher education of wo-
men a commonly accepted fact to turn
their batteries against this sentiment.
1t will be hard to deal with. 1t pro-
ceeds from an affection with which all
humanity sympathizes. The time must
come when parents will be ashamed to
give their sons better educational oppor-
tunities than they give their daughters.
In 1880 the census showed that 154375
of our 22S,7Io school-teachers were wo-
men. This startling fact is of itself a
loud demand for the general extension
of the reform. No one influence is
more powerful in shaping our National
destiny than that of persons who are
shaping the minds and characters OF
those who make it. In these days OF
progress, the best mental training that,
in the nature of things, is possible, is a
young woman's right. 1t should be
given her as a matter of course, and as
freely as the clothes she wears.